Fellowships Newsletter - October 2020

This communication provides some updates on the work of the University Fellowship Programme, and outlines some upcoming initiatives and activities.

Background

Established in October 2019, the York Research Fellowship Programme has two main aims: 

I. to retain, attract, and provide support to, talented early career researchers who aim to gain a fellowship at the University of York; and

II. to support the development of current fellowship holders, allowing them to develop their careers at York.

The programme also supports the sharing of best practice among departments. Oversight and governance of the University Fellowship Programme is provided by the Fellowship Coordination Committee (FCC), which meets quarterly, and is Chaired by the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research (Prof. Matthias Ruth). 

Fellowship Coordinator

Since June 2020 Dr Annabel Jenkins serves as Fellowship Coordinator (0.5 FTE), working closely with the Research Excellence Training Team (where she is based) and the Research Development Team. Annabel has a diverse background, including work within interdisciplinary research projects, and experience in the engineering industry. She has also supported research within departments for several years and currently also serves  as Research Facilitator in the Department of Mathematics. You can contact her on early career fellowship matters at fellowships@york.ac.uk.

Financial Support for Early Career Fellowship applications

The FCC has limited funds to support early career fellowship applications to external funders, through (partial) match-funding. The FCC aims to retain and attract the very best candidates, providing financial support to applications that would not otherwise be possible without its assistance, or where the support clearly improves the chances of the fellowship being funded. More information on the aims of this scheme, including details of what the FCC will consider supporting, can be found on this FCC financial support page.

Fellowship webpages

The University of York Fellowship pages can be found at https://www.york.ac.uk/research/fellowships/. In addition to these externally-facing pages, we are also developing an internal University Fellowships wiki to provide additional information for members of the University, with links to fellowship information at departmental pages, where appropriate.

York Fellowship Community

The University is home to over eighty early career fellowship holders, spanning almost all departments, and covering a diverse range of research, including such topics as ‘Women and the Built Environment in Late Medieval England’ (Dr Rachel Delman, History, Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship) and ‘Experiments on light nuclei to benchmark the chiral EFT ab initio frontier’ (Dr Marina Petri, Physics, Royal Society University Research Fellowship). The ‘Preparing for Fellowship Success’ for early career researchers has run annually since 2019 as an immersive training event for those internal and external researchers whom departments choose to support and nurture through the fellowship writing process. The event includes a Fellowship dinner bringing together prospective and current fellows with identified fellowship mentors. We will continue to build on this initiative and develop ways to bring the early career fellows community together (online in the foreseeable future), and to support their development. As part of this, we’re looking for current early career research fellows to represent their Faculty on the FCC:

OPPORTUNITY - Research Fellowship Representatives on the FCC

We seek one Fellowship Representative from each of the Sciences, Social Sciences, and Arts and Humanities Faculties to represent early career fellows on the FCC. Representatives will input into the direction of initiatives and will also have advocacy roles for fellowships both within their Faculty, and externally. Representatives should currently hold an externally-funded early career fellowship, and have strong communication skills. The role will involve attendance at quarterly meetings and representation at related events where appropriate. The representatives will not participate in administrative processes of the FCC (e.g. financial decisions). They will have an opportunity to feed into the development of the University’s Researcher Development Concordat Action Plan and to ensure that the particular needs of Fellows are considered. This is an excellent opportunity to develop and practice leadership skills and gain experience in the workings of University committees. Early career fellowship holders who wish to apply for one of these roles are asked to submit this form by the end of 23rd October 2020. 

OPPORTUNITY - Fellowships Coordination Committee (FCC) Lead

The FCC Lead will take responsibility for leading on initiatives that support the aims of the York Fellowship Programme (including: the recruitment of early career fellows; the development of current fellowship holders; community-building of fellowship holders across all faculties of the University; and sharing of best practice within the University). The role will include attending FCC meetings, events focused on fellowships (e.g. best practice sharing events, fellowship community events) and working with the Fellowships Coordinator, and other members of committee on the development and execution of events and initiatives. Working with the FCC Chair (Prof. Matthias Ruth) and the rest of the FCC, the FCC Lead will also contribute to decision-making around the strategy and finances of the FCC. It would be expected that the role holder will have some experience in leadership, and a track record in supporting early career academics. It is anticipated that the work of the FCC Lead would take around 0.5 days per week. We ask (1) people who are interested in becoming the FCC Lead to speak to their Head of Department, and (2) for Heads of Department to nominate potential candidates to the Chair of the FCC by sending an email to fellowships@york.ac.uk by the end of 23rd October 2020.

If you have any questions about anything discussed here, or would like to talk more about early career fellowships, please contact Annabel at fellowships@york.ac.uk.

This newsletter has been sent to Heads of Department, Chair of DRC and Departmental Fellowship Contacts. It has also been shared through the York Research Administrators Forum (YRAF) mailing list.